Here is a render I'm working on lighting. To make it simple here is my scene with just one spotlight in it. There is a line of light just beneath the edges of the stairsteps. This happens to me all the time. I always have to paint in the shadow in Photoshop. I made these stairs in AutoCad and brought them into Poser using UVMapperPro. I always fillet/bevel edges on models so that they catch the light properly. I don't know if it has to do with that (some modeling problem) or some shadow setting I'm not aware of. Thanks and Regards...

I believe it's an inherent "feature" of Poser. I suspect it's partly because the models are small scale compared to most other 3D apps. You'll also get annoying leaks if two surfaces with bump maps meet.

D'oh! Would increasing the scale of everthing then work?

Honest answer - I don't know. I think it works something like this: Poser's scale is so tiny, partly because the renderer is so hit and miss. Think of Vicky with her glowing nostrils, for example. The relatively small scale in Poser means it can reduce the number of calculations it makes in order to render an image with a "reasonable" degree of accuracy. I think (but I ain't ever tried) that increasing the scale would cause the renders to become worse, since you'd probably be magnifying the inherent shortcomings of the renderer. Also, increasing the scale would make Poser pretty much unusable, unless you find it acceptable to wait a week or so to get from Victoria's head to her feet. On the other hand, you would probably overcome some of the light leak problems. Poser doesn't like a lot of fine detail in the objects it encounters. In the case of your stairs, the treads may be just too narrow at the edges for Poser to care about. So, there you go. Told you I don't know. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Hey that's alright. I appreciate the response. I was hoping this wasn't an application problem. I can always cover that stuff in post. Thanks!

Moving the spotlight closer may produce better shadows. (i.e., as close as possible without sacrificing effect) Also, use the "shadow cam" and adjust it to maximize the area where the shadow(s) will occur. cheers, dr geep ;=]

BTW - That's an excellent pic! ;=]

If you have Poser 5, try decreasing the shadow bias.

Hey alright! That will teach me to go to sleep! Geep, I am finding that not all lights have a shadow cam, or am I asleep on this also. If you create a light, turn on shadows, then check the camera list, there will be a shadow cam light for that light? I'm goofing off at work so I can't check that here. I'll try decreasing shadow bias also. I'll report back later tonight. I also have had hair pulling moments trying to upscale a Poser figure. I'm really not going that route as SamTherapy points out it makes using Poser hard to do. Thanks all!

"I am finding that not all lights have a shadow cam, or am I asleep on this also." No, you are definately not asleep on this one. A missing shadow cam can be a real annoyance. I will try and do a tut on the subject. cheers, dr geep ;=]

I will try and do a tut on the subject. A tut on adjusting shadow cams would be awesome. I see that many people don't know how to do that where it can vastly improve shadow quality. I don't have the time for writing tutorials these days, it'd be great if you could prepare such a tutorial.

It could be ambient light bouncing off the stair. Try turning off that as well as specularity.